Hello Jarek,
First off, thank you for writting this.  Why?  Because I had mentioned 
this to Connie a few times, but never had the time to sit down, and 
write out a well thought out e-mail asking about this.  I believe you 
wrote a much better e-mail than I could have.

Am I for or against it?  I currently am neutral.  I can see both good an 
bad with going with CentOS as our base.  My comments are below in the 
appropriate area's.

Jaroslaw Polok wrote:
> Hello all.
> 
> Just investigating for the future: or shall we (we = all
> of us using SL(X) go Scientific Linux 5 .. or maybe re-base
> to CentOS 5 ?
> 
> From what I can personally see, and looking at past years
> I believe we are seriously missing resources necessary
> to develop SL to become something more than a Red Hat
> 'clone' ... all of 4-5 (sorry if I missed some!)
> people contributing are obviously overloaded with their
> other work in the labs ...
> 
> The only added value of SL (comparing to CentOS) as
> I see it now is:
> 
> 1). Adding to anaconda the 'sites' functionality
> 2). Adding AFS client (plus few more packages).
> 
> (well, there are few more customizations but these are
> minor I would say)
> 

The one other added value I see is our "tweaks" or SL rpm's.  They might 
be considered minor, but those minor things save alot of work.

> I believe that above could be addressed by a different
> solution in the future: RHEL 5 anaconda should be able
> to use (during installation) additional
> yum repositories (therefore packages we put in 'site'
> could come from there..) :
> 
> - we could possibly use that mechanism in order to
>   build our own 'branches': Fermi, CERN, DESY .. etc ..
> 
> Additional packages (not already present elsewhere)
> could be submitted to CentOS contrib / centosplus
> repos (if general purpose) ... or a new addon
> CentOS repository.
> 

Connie and I have tested out a couple repository variations.  While we 
haven't tried what you said, the new anaconda has shown itself to be 
very flexible and I believe what you said it quite possible.

> Adopting the above would permit us to spend more
> time on something which was supposed to be one
> of our main goals ... and what is not really
> achieved: adding 'scientific' packages to the
> distribution...
> 

As one of the people pushing for this, I agree with this statement. 
That was one of the reasons I had mentioned this to Connie.  CentOS 
already has someone taking Fedora Extra's and packaging it for CentOS. 
Many scientific programs are already in this extra's repository, and it 
would be better for me to throw my efforts in with that repositories 
maintainer that do it on my own.

> What is you opinion about re-basing on CentOS ?
> 
> Pros ? Cons ?
> 
> Let me start the list:
> 
> - Pros:
> 
>     - Avoiding duplicating what already has been
>       provided by linux community.
> 
>     - Joining 'forces' with others having very similar goal
>       (free linux with long livetime 100% RHEL compatible)
> 
>     - Having more time for development of parts
>       of distribution really related to 'science'.
>       (or other areas used developed in our labs:
>        cluster management, HSM, managed desktops ... etc.)
> 
>     - Much larger 'userbase' (see mailing lists !)
> 
>     - Much larger 'expertbase' for community support.
> 

- They also have a much better bugzilla.

>     - Lots of personal time of some of us saved
>       (all these alpha/beta/rc releases
>        ... plus tests ... )
>       [well: I don't know how it is in your labs: but we
>       at CERN cannot spend more than 20%-25% of FTE (Full
>       Time Equivalent) on linux distribution preparation ..]
> 
> - Cons:
> 
>     - ?
> 

- Not having as large a control over the base OS.  But that is really a 
Pro also, because that also means not having as large a responsibility 
over the base OS.

- CentOS doesn't like to let users "sit on a release".  Now this might 
be changing since RedHat is finally letting users do that.  But that 
might be a concern that several scientists have.  You know, as well as 
I, that despite all explanations and reasoning, they don't want 
*anything* to change (and at the same time must have all the latest 
bleeding edge stuff).
This is one point I think we'll have a hard time with when talking to 
some of the user communities.  We'll have to come up with some 
reasonable solution.

> 
> Please reply to the list what are your opinions about
> the above:
> 
>     - I believe that it is right time to discuss such
>       possibility:
> 
>       RHEL 5/CentOS 5/SL 5 are not out yet and I believe
>       there will be no urgency to deploy it in our labs
>       anytime soon (certainly not at CERN: we are just
>       migrating to 4: we will not be permitted to
>       go forward during LHC startup and also most likely
>       not in 2008 ..)
> 
> 
> Cheers
> 
> Jarek (frequently overloaded SLC maintainer ;-))
> 

I think this is the right time to talk about this as well.
Thanks again for bringing it up.

Troy
-- 
__________________________________________________
Troy Dawson  [log in to unmask]  (630)840-6468
Fermilab  ComputingDivision/LCSI/CSI DSS Group
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